


oh! what a night

by inthemarketplace



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hogwarts Third Year, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:22:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24779848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthemarketplace/pseuds/inthemarketplace
Summary: It's third year, it's winter, and it's way past midnight, so Hermione really shouldn't be out of bed. But sometimes, a girl needs to be alone.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 69





	oh! what a night

~late december 1993~

He heard it again, that awful sound.

Draco wasn’t supposed to be in this part of the castle, and certainly not this late at night, but he was restless. He needed to move his legs and the castle stretched before him like an open field, his to claim. It was reckless but why should that make it wrong? He was a Malfoy, and he would inherit the world, so why play at meekness now? 

There it was again! A throaty wailing. Maybe a ghost? But why would a ghost hide? He knew he should leave it alone, but curiosity pulled at him like a string, and he trailed off after the mournful sound.

~~~~~~

Hermione wasn’t supposed to be in this part of the castle. But she couldn’t very well spend the whole night crying in her bed, and anyway, if she wasn’t getting any sleep she might as well get a little peace. Besides, she’d prefer almost anything to Lavender telling everyone at breakfast tomorrow about how “you wouldn’t believe how much she cried and all night, too! I could barely sleep for it!” The once had been plenty. And worse still how unmoved Harry and Ron had been at the discovery that she was in such pain. 

So she was sat here in the battlements, alone but for Crookshanks. Good, reliable, wonderful Crookshanks! Who would never abandon her, unlike a lot of horrid boys who only cared about brooms and nasty little rats. But thinking about the boys only made her sorrowful again and she buried a sob in Crooks’ shaggy fur.

Cloistered within the high stone walls of an archer’s tower, she didn’t hear the footsteps approaching the place where she had settled.

“How long have you been here?” came a low voice, hushed and scraping.

She squeaked at the intrusion and looked around wildly, but she was still alone in the little stone room. 

“Who’s there?” she whispered into the night.

“Does it matter?”

She frowned. She supposed it didn’t. As long as she didn’t get hexed or scolded or laughed at, she didn’t really care. 

“Why are you out here?”

“I—” she began, but the words died in her throat. It was only a handful of words, but this was already the longest conversation she’d had with someone who wasn’t a professor in a week. And she wasn’t entirely sure it was happening outside her imagination. She was staring at the wall when it finally caught her eye: of course, there was an arrow slit in the wall, a tiny little window almost two metres high. Not her imagination, then. Probably.

“It’s a long story,” she finally said.

“Is it?”

She didn’t know what to say to that so she stared at the floor, holding her knees to her chest.

“I suppose I didn’t want the others to see me crying.”

“Hmm, good.”

She looked up at the little window and wondered what would happen if she stood on her toes and tried to look through it. Who would be on the other side? She didn’t really want to do it though; something about the anonymity felt safe and, despite the harsh winter, warm.

Suddenly she was struck by the image of a confessional.

_Forgive me father for I have sinned: my cat chases mice and I don’t want my best friend to die._

“Everyone hates me,” she whispered.

“Not likely,” came the voice, obscured by the heavy night air as it bounced about on the echoing stone. “Doubtful _everyone_ knows you well enough to hate you. Statistically improbable, that.”

She sniffed out a laugh at that.

“Thanks.”

A pause. And then:

“You should forget them,” said the voice, lower now and gruff.

“What?”

“If they make you cry. You shouldn’t—they’re not worth your time.” 

She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. He wouldn’t say that if he knew who her friends were; no one would pick her over Harry or Ron. And he wouldn’t be so kind if he knew who _she_ was either. She knew that was true; the only boys who were still nice to her hardly had enough daring to wander the castle at night. Still, it was nice to pretend that there was a world where this strange boy would choose her, that in the dark she might be enough.

“Thank you,” she whispered softly.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Alright.”

Silence blanketed the space between them, stretching out into the night. But it had none of the tension of awkward conversations cut short in the light of day. It was easy as breathing, and when he finally spoke again it felt as natural as waking up from a dream.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Pardon?”

“You asked, earlier. Why I was out here.”

“Oh,” she breathed. And then: “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he said, and his voice was softer now, “I think it was worth it, if I got to talk to you.”

_His voice_ , she repeated in her mind. _His—_ _oh dear._

And she thought with a jolt that perhaps it was not so wise to be alone at the edge of the castle with a strange boy. For a boy it must be: the disembodied voice was low and rocky and though she couldn’t place it to any person, she was sure she was right. She supposed she had known the whole time, but it felt important now. Dangerous, even. Thrilling perhaps.

“Do you do this often?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“Wander the castle at night, I mean.”

“Do you?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t,” she said. It wasn’t an answer.

“No, I suppose not.”

She watched the stars twinkle in the night sky.

They had been quiet for a spell when she broke the silence.

“Are you still there?” she asked, lifting her chin toward the window.

In response, she heard the faintest hint of a snore. 

She smiled and found, with a stretch of her shoulders, that she was very tired too. She’d cried herself out. It was time to go back to bed. She rose and looked at the window, imagining the sleeping stranger on the other side. But it was too much a risk to be seen; she neither wanted the possibility of detention or to see the disappointment in his eyes when her stranger realised who he’d consoled.

So she stole away. She almost turned around to creep along the other side of the wall and take one glance… but she stopped herself. Perhaps it was better not knowing. Perhaps it was best to leave the moment as it was, as it had been: a perfect little island in a sea of tears. The feeling of being known without the fear of being seen.

Still, in the weeks that followed, it was difficult to keep from staring at different boys in the corridors, wondering _was it you? Does it matter?_

~~~~~

He awoke with a start. The sky was still dark but the cold had bitten into his very bones. He wondered how long he had lingered on the battlement, consoling an invisible girl. 

And it had been a girl, it must have been; not a ghost after all.

“Are you still there?” he asked the window.

No response. 

He sighed and looked up at the inky depths of the night sky. Standing finally, his limbs protesting at the motion, he stretched his neck and cast a warming spell.

Cautiously, he moved around the corner, peering into the alcove, but found it was empty.

He wondered to himself what he’d been planning to do if she’d still been there. 

Ask her name, for one. 

Try to make her feel better? 

Strange. He wasn’t really the type to worry about crying girls. That was the stuff of weak fools, tripping over themselves to bend to everyone else’s will.

But he hadn’t felt weak or foolish. It had simply been strange. He was so accustomed to the same tricks for getting his way. He could whine or demand or threaten, and he would be in control. A junior version of the command his father always enjoyed. This had been different.

It had felt powerful, but not like the brandishing of a well executed threat, and nothing like the power he’d seen his father wield: the girl on the other side of the stone wasn’t afraid of him.

It was… strange. That was all there was to it.

He walked back to the dormitories lost in thought.

At breakfast, when Crabbe asked him where he’d been so late last night, he merely shrugged. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want to tell anyone about the girl in the battlements. He didn’t think they’d understand and besides, he found that he wanted to keep her for himself. 

So he wrapped the memory in a shroud of silence, unadulterated by taunts and jests, sacred and special and all his own.

**Author's Note:**

> visit me on tumbler @ivi312 <3


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